Like old school Swedish death metal? Well you're going to bloody love Demonical. Album number three for these maniacs is a fiery burst of Swedish death metal, ripping up the (left hand) path Entombed, Dismember, Grave and co. laid down throughout the nineties. No frills, nothing pretentious, just balls to the wall, corpse-flinging death metal that is played with a burning intensity and really puts the pedal to the metal.

Demonical set out to destroy you from the get go, the tone is wonderfully Swedish and rips away at your flesh. The bass fucking thunders and the drums crash and smash away. There's a reason the Swedish scene is my favorite death metal scene, and Death Infernal shows exactly why. While the band do mine an already well-mined vein, they gladly avoid the mundane with a cracking set of songs, and as mentioned before the band have intensity in spades, they sound like they really mean business. Standouts include the mammoth "Slain Warriors", the Amon Amarth tinge of "March for Victory" and the all-out attack of "The Arrival of Armageddon". They also do a smoking cover of Emperor's "Night of the Graveless Souls" which lends well to the death metal sound, incentive enough to grab the special edition of the album.

All in all I was really surprised with Death Infernal, obviously not because of its originality (come on, Swedish death metal) but because of how fucking bad ass the album is. One of the finer death metal albums I've heard this year. If you care about Swedish death metal you need this in your life as soon as possible. Recommended.